For many composers—Bach, Handel and Mozart among them—the fact that woodwind players need to breathe from time to time appears to be an inconvenience, an unwanted interruption to the long-flowing line, the continuous stream of activity. Breath breaks, becomes a barrier. But what if breathing itself was part of the music, rather than one of many hidden mechanisms that make it happen? 

Flautist Kathryn Williams has faced chronic respiratory conditions which caused the connections between her body, breath and musical expression to be severed. A successful sinus operation in 2016 enabled her to resume her performance career and Coming Up For Air began as a response to her recovery. Kathryn was forced to approach her performances one breath at a time, so single-breath pieces were able to demonstrate some of the ways she was able to stitch these relationships back together. The result is an ever-growing body of work that has proven to be therapeutic, both musically and physically.

This album collects 40 different responses to one straightforward question: what can be communicated in a single breath? This limitation has inspired a wide range of approaches—some composers have contributed a melody, some have foregrounded a physiological challenge, others have offered a single sound, and others still have created their own playful exceptions to the prompt. The contributions are from composers of all ages, backgrounds and levels of experience. The youngest composer represented is just eight years old, and the album brings together aesthetically diverse artists including Chaya Czernowin, Oliver Coates, Amber Priestley, Andy Ingamells, Larry Goves, Annie Hui-Hsin Hsieh, Newton Armstrong, Mary Bellamy, Stephen Chase, Sarah Hennies, Mauricio Pauly, and Brian Ferneyhough, who is represented here by the brief excerpt from Unity Capsule that provided the original inspiration for the project.

Coming Up For Air

HCR22 | Mark Dyer: Memento For Kathryn

Founded in 2009, Huddersfield Contemporary Records (HCR) is a label devoted to new music. Based at the University of Huddersfield, and established in partnership between CeReNeM (the Centre for Research in New Music), Huddersfield University Press, and hcmf//, HCR features both established and emerging artists at the cutting edge of music making, including diverse innovations in instrumental composition, electronics, and free improvisation. HCR releases have been recorded and produced both in-house at the university and with a broad selection of professional partners, including hcmf//, ZKM, and Radio Bremen, and have attracted exceptional press attention for a label of its size. HCR produces outward-facing compilations, internationally contextualised but centred on new music in the UK. The label develops concept-driven releases, typically featuring a single performing artist and multiple composers, often drawing on the resources of CeReNeM’s industry partnerships and its international research network.  
 
Since 2015, HCR has been exclusively distributed by NMC Recordings.

HCR22 | Mark Dyer: Memento For Kathryn

HCR: Huddersfield Contemporary Records